A portrait of the billionaire entrepreneur Igor Tulchinsky has gone on public view within the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, amid scrutiny over his ties to the Israel Protection Forces (IDF). The Belarus-born, United States-based Tulchinksy is the lead sponsor of the exhibition, having reportedly donated £5m in the direction of manufacturing prices.
The portrait is by the British artist Jonathan Yeo, identified for his depictions of King Charles III, unveiled in 2024, and the previous US president George W. Bush, a controversial collage constructed from pornographic photographs created in 2007.
Yeo wrote on Instagram that he’s “honoured that this portrait was commissioned to mark Igor Tulchinsky’s sponsorship of the Bayeux Tapestry’s opening in London and that it’s going to hold within the British Museum all through what’s already a legendary exhibition”. Charlotte Appleyard, the director of growth on the British Museum, feedback on the identical submit: “You’re good and we’re very grateful.” On the time of publication, the museum declined to say how the work was commissioned and its value. The Artwork Newspaper understands it was not commissioned as a part of the sponsorship.
Tulchinsky emigrated to the US as a toddler from Belarus. He’s the founder and chief government of WorldQuant, a quantitative funding agency with $17bn in belongings in keeping with Forbes, which values his private fortune at $1.7bn.
Final 12 months Tulchinsky donated $1m to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee—the organisation funding the 2025 presidential inauguration of Donald Trump and vice-president JD Vance. In 2025, he launched a enterprise capital operation in Israel known as WorldQuant Genesis, centered on investments in early-stage deep-tech firms.
In response to the information publication CTech, the fund has invested in NavAiro, which CTech describes as “an Israeli defense-tech startup creating options to counter swarms of low-cost drones”. Tulchinsky employed a former IDF commander, Saar Tzur, to handle the fund. WorldQuant, the British Museum and Jonathan Yeo have been contacted for remark about these affiliations.
Tulchinksy was in dialog with Appleyard on the annual Artwork Enterprise Convention in London earlier this week, explaining why he needed to again the blockbuster Bayeux present and the small print that stand out. “[The part] the place individuals’s heads are reduce off—that made an impression on me,” he stated, including that he thinks of the medieval masterpiece as a “knowledge set” with its huge forged of characters and animals.
The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition has confirmed to be probably the most extremely anticipated reveals to open within the UK in current occasions. The primary set of public tickets offered out inside hours, elevating round £2.5m for the museum. Round a million guests are anticipated by the point the exhibition closes on 11 July 2027.
